The news that Monsanto is being bought by Bayer probably won’t be well received in the cannabis sector. The deal brings together two research powerhouses that, reportedly, have long eyed cannabis as a possible new business. The worry is that the combined firm will have the financial and political influence to do to cannabis what it has already done to corn, tobacco, and other cash crops—namely, use pricy patented cannabis seeds (Roundup Ready Blue Dream, anyone?) that favor large-scale operators and rigidly control how all cannabis farmers farm. The merger, in other words, could be the first step toward Big Cannabis.

In the crowded world of on-demand apps, there are three criteria that matter, according to Eaze CEO Keith McCarty:

1. Consumers use the product a lot.
2. Suppliers can be agile.
3. The product is naturally social.

All three of those criteria are met and exceeded by cannabis, the product delivered by McCarty’s company. Eaze partners with medical marijuana dispensaries to bring the drug to nearly 100 cities and towns in California, and he joined Recode’s Kara Swisher and The Verge’s Lauren Goode on the latest Too Embarrassed to Ask to talk about what’s next.

There won’t be wreaths of smoke wafting overhead at this weekend’s Cannabis Expo at the cavernous Vancouver Convention Centre West.

It’s all business for more than 130 industry exhibitors, who will welcome an expected 10,000 of the curious on Saturday and Sunday, a month after the federal government introduced new regulations governing medical marijuana use, and less than a year before the expected legalization of recreational use for adults.

For the marijuana industry in B.C. and Canada, it’s the calm before a commercial storm — selling pot for medicinal use will be dwarfed by the trade in pot for recreational users.

Is the business of cannabis for all of us?

Don't believe the hype. Los Angeles has more dispensaries than the entire state of Colorado. And L.A.'s population is nearly three-fourths minority. So if California fully legalizes marijuana in November under Proposition 64, the city is poised to become America's pot capital again, at least in the eyes of a national media enamored with Denver's nascent weed culture.

But if L.A. is to retake its throne and California, where Latinos comprise the largest racial or ethnic group, is to resume its role as the nation's marijuana darling, where are the culture's minority entrepreneurs?

Need some medical marijuana? There's an app for that.

An Alberta-based pot producer has launched a mobile app to make it easier for patients with a prescription to purchase federally-regulated medicinal weed.

Cam Battley, of Aurora Cannabis, said the idea was to give customers the same service as giant online retailers such as Amazon.

"As far as we know, it is the first legal app for Android and Apple for federally-approved legal medical cannabis," Battley said.

"The fact is that people live on their phones and tablets. They use them to shop for everything from consumer products and health products to medicine. It is an acknowledgment of the reality of how people operate today."

Canadians consume marijuana. They smoke it. They eat it. They use its extracts and derivatives.

Statistics Canada found that 43 per cent of Canadians over the age of 15 have tried the drug and 33.5 per cent have used it more than once.

Furthermore, in a 2015 poll by Forum Research just under one-fifth of participants, or 18 per cent, admitted to having consumed the drug in the past year, with an added 13 per cent saying they would be more likely to do so if it were legal.

And with Canada lurching towards legalization, many businesses are looking to get into the market, including Canada Post.

The alcohol industry has joined the pharmaceutical trade in the fight against legal cannabis in the U.S. amid fears of losing significant market share.

Last week it came to light that a synthetic cannabis company helped finance the opposition to legal cannabis in the state of Arizona, and now, according to The Intercept, a beer industry group made one of the largest donations to an organisation set up to take on legalisation in Massachusetts.

The standards developed for medical marijuana by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association are part of a pilot program involving five caregivers.

Maine patients could be the first on the East Coast to consume medical marijuana grown to standards similar to those used for certified organic food products.

The Certified Clean Cannabis program, launched by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association and now in a yearlong trial phase, is the first of its kind on the East Coast and one of the only programs in the country to set standards for growing medical marijuana without harmful chemicals.